Tag: Christmas

Hi all. Just a very quick post to say that I’m still here but not doing as much in the blogging world at the moment. Reason being I recently started a new job and although it’s part time, I’m finding it’s taking me a while to get used to my new routine.

The upshot is I’m very tired at the moment and I’ve got zero energy so I’m just going to take it easy for a while and blog as and when I can. I hope you can understand that I need to do this for my own well being and that as soon as I’m able I’ll be participating more in the blogging world.

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a very happy New Year. 😀

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Hey everyone. I hope this post finds you well and that you all had a fantastic Christmas. I did. It was quiet and uneventful (apart from the usual family-seeing, opening-presents time) but good. It was lovely to catch up with my brother and sister who I don’t see that often.

Well I’m still working away on my current novel-to-be Reunion. I did over 1100 words on it yesterday, so I’m pleased with how it’s going. I hope to publish it some time in 2014.

I haven’t found the process of self-publishing entirely easy, but then I don’t think any self-published author I’ve been in contact with has. My debut novel The Inheritance hasn’t done as well as I would have liked. Like my good friend Jade Reyner I’ve experienced some, shall we say, less than favourable reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

But it’s easy to focus on the negatives. I’ve had plenty of good reviews too and that keeps me going. Also as my husband is quick to remind me, I wasn’t originally going to publish The Inheritance and it’s largely down to him that I did. He felt it was important for me to have a book out there being read by people, to have the experience of self-publishing.

And I have to say I get a real buzz seeing it on Amazon and Goodreads, getting feedback from people who’ve read it, even if that feedback isn’t always positive. Now that I’ve been through the process of self-publishing a novel and learning to market it, I feel stronger as a writer. I’m constantly learning – aren’t we all – and I feel that my writing style is improving.

So I hope that when I come to publish Reunion, which is more of a straightforward romance than The Inheritance, my acquired knowledge of self-publishing will stand me in good stead.

On another note, but related to writing, I’ve given up with Scrivener. A week or so ago I had another play around with it and I couldn’t make sense of it. It just seems so complex and I was going round in circles with it. Luckily I didn’t lose any work as I just copied and pasted from Word into Scrivener. But it was really frustrating for me to not get anywhere with it. What I really need is to sit down with a physical person at my desk who is experienced with using Scrivener and can teach me how to use it.

Till then I’m sticking with Word! Or for the moment at least anyway. It’s a far simpler programme than Scrivener and far easier to navigate my way around! I wonder if there’s a way for the people who developed Scrivener to make it more user friendly?

Anyway I’d love to hear your reflections on your writing experiences of 2013 and if you’ve had more success (or less if that’s possible!) with Scrivener than me.

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I hope you’ve all had a good week. I’ve been doing some Christmas shopping, some online some in regular shops. Thankfully I don’t have too many people to buy for so that’s good for me!

Anyway on to the main event on my blog today: WIPpet Wednesday. Seeing as it’s the eleventh of December today, I thought I’d share with you 10 lines from chapter 12 of my current WIP Reunion.

Only 10 lines? I hear you ask. OK 11-1 = 10 and I just felt the extract works better without the extra line. It follows directly on from last week’s WIPpet post. A week has passed since Anna’s run in with Will and she’s sitting comfortably on the sofa in her best friend’s new house, thinking about what happened.

Anna closed her eyes as she was sitting on the sofa of Melissa’s front room, basking in the warmth of the new house. It was now Friday evening. In less than a week Melissa had managed to get most of her belongings packed away. Although she’d told Anna she wanted to do some decorating, to make her mark on it, the house was pretty much up together now.

Anna was unsurprised. Melissa always had been organised. She’d been in her new house for a week now. And almost a week had passed since Anna’s run-in with Will yet she couldn’t stop thinking about it, trying to make sense of it. Why was he stalking her? Was he obsessed with her?

So if you want to take part in WIPpet Wednesday just post on your blog an excerpt of whatever you’re currently working on writing-wise that relates in some way to the date. Then hop along to this linky and add your name.